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23 Nov 2016

Two years ago, Oppo and Vivo couldn’t crack the top five in China’s smartphone market. Now they outrank everyone after elbowing Apple aside, thanks to people like Cheng Xiaoning.

Cheng runs a thriving electronics store in the rural town of Miaoxia, tapping into her WeChat social media account to promote the brands that pay the biggest commission, and in her case that’s Oppo and Vivo. While such payments start at about 40 yuan (US$6), they escalate for more expensive handsets and reach almost 200 yuan for Oppo’s high-end smartphones.

“That’s why I like to introduce the Oppo R9 Plus to potential customers,” she said. “Business has been perfect, actually never been better.”

Cheng and tens of thousands of like-minded boosters form the vanguard of the pair’s charge against Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Working with the local stores that dominate sales in China’s far-flung provinces, Oppo and Vivo came out of nowhere to upend the industry order and squeeze out former local darling Xiaomi Corp. Their labels graced one out of every three smartphones sold within China in the third quarter, while the iPhone’s market share at 7 percent stood at its lowest in almost three years.

Oppo and Vivo trace their origins to reclusive billionaire Mr Duan Yong Ping and employ similar strategies. That includes harnessing the spending power of rural customers away from top-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. It’s where Apple’s vulnerable given the iPhone’s lofty price tag. They eschewed e-commerce to instead court the stores where three-quarters of smartphone sales take place. Apple has been more reluctant to relinquish the retail experience to local free-agents, who sometimes charge brands for in-store displays and posters.

“Oppo and Vivo are willing to share their profit with local sales. The reward was an extremely active and loyal nationwide sales network,” said Jin Di, an IDC analyst based in Beijing. While they declined to detail their subsidy program, she estimates the two were the top spenders in the past year. “They’re doing something different -- they do local marketing.”

Together Oppo and Vivoshippedabout 40 million smartphones in the third quarter of 2016, about 34 percent of devices sold in the world’s biggest market, according to IDC. In 2012, their combined share was about 2.5 percent. IPhone shipmentsplungedmore than a third to 8.2 million during the period -- less than half of Vivo’s. Samsung, which once led the market, now settles for roughly 5 percent, according to Counterpoint.

Oppo and Vivo pack high-end specs into a phone that sells for a fraction of its rival’s in China, where iPhone 7s start at 5,388 (US$784). Consider the Oppo R9 plus: for 2,999 yuan, buyers get an aluminum body, 6-inch display, 16-megapixel camera and a battery that claims 19 hours of calls, photo and web browsing. Vivo’s high-end Xplay6, with a price tag of 4,498 yuan, also undercuts Apple.

The man who’s clobbering Apple started out low on the tech spectrum. Duan mae his fortune selling DVD players, telephones and game consoles similar to Nintendo’s. Bubugao Communication Equipment Co. Ltd., the parent of Vivo, emerged from a restructuring in 1999 that split his company. The billionaire later teamed with long-time colleague Tony Chen and others to found what came to be known as Guangdong Oppo Electronics Co.

While Duan has kept a low profile since moving to the U.S. in 2001, he occasionally makes his way into the spotlight. In 2006, he bid a then-record $620,100 to have lunch with Warren Buffett. Oppo’s first smartphone came in 2011, when it unveiled a device with a BlackBerry-like keyboard. The same year, Bubugao created the business that would become Vivo.

Today, Vivo touts its cameras and Oppo focuses on rapid-charging and battery life. But their offline strategies remain the same: mobilizing tens of thousands of private shop owners. Oppo said it sells its products through roughly 240,000 privately owned stores as of June -- six times the global count of McDonald’s. Vivo manages about half that, said Jin. Oppo, which doesn’t disclose sales figures, said about 90 percent of its phones were sold offline.

“We have to keep our minds clear in the fast-changing market,” sid Allen Wu, Oppo’s vice-president in charge of sales. “All we need to do is to keep our heads down and make the correct moves.”

To Vivo, that means targeting younger users with higher-performance devices. “Camera and music will be our key focuses in the future. We are seeing greater customer expectations out of these two areas,” company vice-president Ni Xudong said.

22 Nov 2016

The world’s oldest printed book is not the Bible but The Diamond Sutra or translated as Diamond Cutter.

In chapter 1 of The Diamond Cutter, it talks about the concept of Emptiness. Emptiness is not empty but full of meaning.

Understand that everything that is happening in your team and organization, including the things that you like or dislike, is empty. They are not pleasant or unpleasant things, they are just empty.

This is because what is success to one is considered failure to another, that's why things are empty by themselves. It is the meaning that we give to things that has meaning. For example, you see your team fighting among each other as bad. But to the your team member, the fighting is for him to succeed in his promotion, not his colleague.

Whatever we want our team to do as a leader, we cannot succeed by telling them what to do. We can succeed only by planting the right seeds.

The seeds that we plant in our mind are called karmic seeds. The seeds lay deep inside our sub-conscious mind. Then the time is ready, the seeds will crack open.

As a leader, we need to plant the right seeds, plant it right, and take of the seeds right. The seeds will grow to a plant, given the right conditions and situations. We plant seeds with our thoughts, words and deeds.

We can only plant seeds by helping others get what they want. In short, what you want to get, you don't get it yourself, you get it by helping your team get it. For example, if you want a promotion, you need to help your team members get promotion, only then will you yourself be promoted.

The 5 Sit-Down Steps:

1. Describe in specific terms what you want in a single short sentence. Eg I want to get promoted to Director by 2017 June

2. Plan who it is that you are going to help go get the same thing. In our example, you need to pick one team member that also wants to be promoted by June 2017

3. Sit down with that person and talk about how you can help him get what he wants

4. Do something to help hem get promoted. It could be that you train and coach him every day

5. Practise Mindfulness. Be mindful of what you are doing everyday that will help him get what he wants. As you go to sleep, plant seeds in your mind by thinking of what you are going to do to help him. Such thoughts will manifest into your speech, behaviour and action

SALES AND CUSTOMER SERVICE POWER

Fee: $298 each, $199 each for 2 and above, $149 each for 5 and above (with PIC 40% grant)

Your team has been working very hard and your company products and services are quite well accepted in the market. Your company has also invested heavily in marketing and systems. Yet you find it a challenge to keep up with the ever rising customer expectations and sales targets.

Make no mistake: all sales activities must have power or you will lose business to your competitors. Whether you are new or experienced in sales, if you too want to make this year the best of your career, come for this high impact 1-day course...Sales Power...

Power-packed Contents Include:

Problem with Most Salespeople: Lack of Service

Problem with most customer service and technical support staff: never sell

How to Achieve Unbelievable Results when you combine customer service with sales

The Five Most Elements in Sales - Prospecting, Marketing, Selling, Transactions and Wallet-Share

How to Double Your Sales by just 10% Increase in Each Line and top 25 Strategies

Top 10 Customer Service Strategies on the 5 Ways

The Sales Process from Needs to Closing

Service From the Heart: what it Means using the Law of Connection

Overcoming Objections in 15 Key Ways and another 68 methods

Dealing wth Service Challenges

Jeffrey Fox Power of Dollarization

Ladder of Loyalty from Suspects to Raving Fans

The Ultimate in Sales: Transform Your Customers' Live

Bonus: Sure-win Scripts to Close Every Sale and Service Customers

BENEFITS:

Higher Sales without Lowering Your Price

Better Service without Increasing your Cost

More Motivated Team without Increasing their Pay

Higher Profits and Happier Team without Fuss

*** This course qualifies for PIC (Productivity & Innovation Credit), where you can get 60% Grant.

FOR WHO TO ATTEND:

Managers and Directors in Customer Service and Sales

Executives in Sales, Bus. Dev. and Sales

All Support Functions Executives and Managers

Self-employed people in Insurance, Banking and Real Estate

Retail Industry personnel

THESE ARE WHAT SOME OF OUR CLIENTS AND PAST PARTICIPANTS HAVE TO SAY:

Interesting and refreshing, a wake-up call. I now know how to get more sales without incurring higher cost. AndyTheCoach at www.asiatrainers.com is the best in this topic!

- David Lum, GM, Francois Marine Pte Ltd

I learnt about how to identify gaps and capture opportunities for growth. Thank you AsiaTrainers.com and your 368 strategies!

- Patrick Koh, Manager, Leong Hin Foods Pte Ltd

Learning about AndyTheCoach concepts and strategies has helped me to increase my sales by 41%. I have attended 12 courses this year!

- Wan Siew Onn, Sales Director of a software company

PROFILE OF ASIA COACHING TRAINING

Sales Coach Andy Ng has 29 years experience: He started doing business at the age of 5. Since 1996, Andy has trained over 81,413 people in 15 countries. His Magnetic Selling DVD and e-book SUN ZI FOR SALES have sold hundreds of copies in 5 countries. Asia Coaching Training was, from 2001-2007, the licensee for Action International in Singapore. The clients trained by Andy include SingTel, SIM, Manulife Financial, Walton International, DBS Group, M1, Yakun, BreadTalk, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Gillette, F & N Foods, Kaplan Asia and Teleperformance Asia. Visit our blog at www.andyngtrainer.blogspot.sg and see him in action at www.youtube.com/AndyNgCoach

7 Nov 2016

Due to labour shortage, most companies are like beggars when it comes to hiring people. Because there is so much work to do, and because you have a limited budget, you are quite happy to take anyone who is willing to work with you. The hope is that let’s just go ahead and get him on the team, and we’ll teach him on the job.

However, having the wrong person in that role can be far more expensive!

You may not even realise he is a misfit, because your employee will always have a ready excuse for why he has failed to deliver as promised. He will blame the limited budget or the competition, but when you finally do figure out that he is the wrong person for the job, you are reluctant to fire him, because terminating someone is very hard to do.

No one likes unpleasantness and therefore you try to put it off. You hope that with training and guidance he will improve, but when this doesn’t happen, you are in a quandary. Your first response is to try to push him into an alternative role – one which is more suited for him.

Because you don’t have the courage to fire him, sometimes you create a role in the company for him , but this ends up becoming a drain on your limited resources. It can be heart-breaking to let someone go, but you don’t have the luxury of trying to fit square pegs in round holes.

When An Incompetent Employee Must Be Let Go

Sometimes it’s kinder to fire him – not just for the company, but for him as well. After all, if you are not happy with him, imagine how miserable he must be, knowing that he is unable to deliver.

Checking and counter-checking his work ends up draining your time and energy – and you really don’t have the luxury of being able to supervise him and correct his errors. Rather than reducing your work-load, he increases your burden. Because you cannot trust that he will do his job efficiently, you need to micro-manage him, and this drags down your personal productivity.

The longer you allow the problem to fester, the worse it becomes. Sometimes you so need to be ruthless, and this is part of the job description of being a boss

In ConclusionIt’s cheaper and easier, in the long run, to let wrong people go. You may worry that firing him will hurt the morale of the rest of the team, but most people are happy to see an under-performer leave, as no one likes working with incompetent people. You don’t need to be cruel about this, and if they can see that you have done your best to help him find another job, they will be quite willing to accept your decision. In fact, some of them may say that this is something you should have done much earlier!

Learn to hire slowly – hiring the wrong person can prove to be an expensive mistake!

6 Nov 2016

GOOD GOAL: “I want to eat 3 healthy meals per week and go to the gym 2 times a week for 15 minutes each.”

Notice how we’re focusing on theprocessat first, and starting off conservative: Anyone can eat just3 healthy meals in a week. And anyone can go to the gym for 15 minutes. Set yourself up to win.

EXAMPLE #2: MONEY

BAD GOAL: “I want to save $1,000 this year.”

GOOD GOAL: “I want to have $200 per paycheck automatically transferred to my vacation savings fund for 1 year.”

EXAMPLE #3: SOCIAL SKILLS

BAD GOAL: “I want to work on my storytelling so I’m not so awkward at parties.”

GOOD GOAL: “I want to complete the Udemy online course it in the next 4 weeks.”

We need to create a SMART Objective. SMART Objectives are:

Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant and Time-oriented

Checklist for writing a SMART Objective:

Specific: Just like Example #1 above, start with the process at first. Decide on a specific action step you can take.

✔ What will you achieve?

✔ What does it look like? (What do you see in your mind when you picture yourself working towards your goal?)

✔ What is the action step?

Measurable: How will you know if you’ve reached your goal or not? Avoid words that may have vague meanings like, “learn” or “feel” since you can’t measure them. Instead, use action verbs like “run,” “save,” or “write.” Then, turn those words into quantifiable benchmarks.

You need to be able to answer the question, “Did I get it done? If not, how much further do I have to go?”

✔ How will you know when it is done?

✔ What are some objective benchmarks you can hit along the way?

✔ Would someone else be able to tell that it’s complete?

✔ Is it quantifiable?

Attainable: The best way to achieve a goal is not to rely on motivation, but instead make it ridiculously easy for your future self to do the right thing. Instead of committing to running 5 days a week, start with one day and move up from there.

Relevant: Ask yourself, in the scheme of all the things you want to try, do you really care about this?

✔ Why am I doing this?

✔ Is this a priority for me?

✔ Will it compete with other goals in my life?

Time-oriented: Give yourself a deadline to reassess your goal. And put it on the calendar! I like to re-evaluate my goals every 3-months to make sure they are still Attainable and Relevant.

✔ Is there a deadline?

✔ Did I put it on the calendar?

✔ Will I know in 3 months if I’m on the right track?

In short, if you want to set goals, never set bad goals. Bad Goals are goals that do not have SMART as criteria.